What is it?
mosaic One of the oldest and most durable forms of mural decoration,
mosaic was in constant use from the earliest times up to about the 13th century,
when it was largely superseded by fresco and other forms of painting which
are both much cheaper and much more adaptable to a realistic style. Recently,
however, the very stylization inherent in mosaic has led to its revival as a
decorative art. The technique is simple but laborious. A cartoon is drawn on
the wall to be decorated and a small area covered with cement. Previously,
small cubes (called tesserae) have been chipped from slabs of coloured stone,
marble, and coloured or gilt glass; the tesserae are then stuck into the cement.
Great care was taken in the best early mosaics to ensure that all the tesserae were
not perfectly flat and level, since an uneven surface catches the light and reflects
it in different ways according to the angle of incidence and the material used
for the tesserae, whereas most modern mosaics look as if the tesserae have
been
ironed on, defeating the charm of the medium. Mosaic was much used for the
decoration of Early Christian and Byzantine churches and there are splehdid
cycles in Rome, Ravenna, Venice, Constantinople and Sicily, as well as in
Greece. The stylization of the treatment of figures, seen frontally, and the
avoidance of perspective in mosaic decoration are major elements in the
grandeur of their appearance. Once attempts are made to make the compositions
more naturalistic the technique becomes no more than a very expensive way
of painting a picture which would be better executed in oil-painting or fresco.
The great 13th-century revival in Rome preceded the realistic movement in
painting (Cavallini, Giotto) and
the
art was still practised in Venice in fhe
15th century (e.g. by Uccello
in St Mark's).
Source: The Penguin Dictionary of Art and Artists (Penguin Reference Books)
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